Bill Clinton: Hillary wants me to restore image of US

Bill Clinton shakes hands with people in the crowd as he leaves Waterstones in Regent Street, London where he was signing copies of his new book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. Photograph: Sean Smith

If Hillary Clinton wins the US presidency, Bill Clinton will be given the job of repairing America's damaged international reputation, the former president tells the Guardian in an interview today.

Mr Clinton, 61, reveals that his wife has said she would ask him to "go out and immediately restore America's standing, go out and tell people America was open for business and cooperation again" after eight years marked by unilateralist policies that have "enrage[d] the world".

For the first time in his political life, Mr Clinton says, "ordinary US voters in the heartlands are concerned about who would be most likely to restore America's standing in the world" in the wake of the Iraq war, lack of action on climate change and other policies.

"The average American knows instinctively that we have almost no problems in the world that we can solve all by ourselves," he says. "And that, I think, is helping her candidacy, because people believe - I think rightly - that if she were elected she would quickly move to restore our standing in the world, and tell people there may be a few occasions when we have to do something on our own, but our strong preference is going to be to be cooperative."

The collective effect of American unilateralism has been "to enrage the world at the very moment when we had more support than we've had in recent memory, because of 9/11", Mr Clinton says.

The former president was visiting London this week to host a fundraising dinner for his wife's campaign, and to promote his new book, Giving, which urges people to give time and money to good causes regardless of their age or wealth.

Inspired by Nelson Mandela, Mr Clinton has played a key role in tapping new wealth from the IT sector as a source of philanthropic funds. At last week's Clinton Global Initiative event in New York, he said, individuals, corporations and world leaders pledged at least $10bn (£4.9bn), and possibly twice that.

Mr Clinton argues that American voters are tiring of a politics and media that have been under the sway of "the most ideological, rightwing element of the Republican party", leading to a national climate in which "three-dimensional reality" has been turned into "two-dimensional cartoons, and then [the rightwing media] try to get people to divide up on the basis of whether you like the cartoon or not ... I want the American people to stop rewarding the ideological wing of the Republican party, so we can have a centre-left party and a centre-right party and they can have real debates about real things."

Ms Clinton's presidential campaign is looking stronger than ever. One recent poll shows the New York senator opening up a 33% lead over her closest contender for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama, and a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday suggested she would beat the Republican frontrunner, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, by a 51-43% margin in an election.

Mr Clinton says his wife's image as a ruthlessly ambitious politician is unfair. "Contrary to the image that has been cultivated about my wife, she's always been a rather reluctant electoral person," he says. Soon after they met, he says, he suggested they split up so that both could enter politics. But she told him: "You know, it's just not my thing ... I don't know if people would ever want to vote for me. I'm just too outspoken."

Mr Clinton reveals that he advised Tony Blair to take a break after leaving No 10, but said there was no way he could turn down the opportunity to become an international envoy to the Middle East. "He and I care too much about the Middle East peace," he says.